Timor Sea Oil Slick: Growing Australian Disaster

UPDATE: Australia Oil Well on Fire

Timor Sea: Terra Satellite Images (MODIS)

Background Information:

• Major Ecological Disaster Underway in Timor Sea
• Australian Oil Disaster May Get a Lot Worse

Oil Slick in the Timor Sea (Earth Observatory)

What was probably a sheen of oil calmed the waters of the Timor Sea and darkened the mirror-like reflection of the Sun when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on September 17, 2009. The top image shows the wider area, with part of Western Australia at lower right. The colorful water near the shore is probably a mixture of sediment and phytoplankton. The bottom image is a close up of the area outlined in white.

The oil was leaking from a well that was damaged during drilling on August 21. According to news reports, chemicals that help the oil disperse are being dropped on the slick from airplanes. The light-colored streaks may be some combination of oil and dispersant.

Twice-daily images of the Timor Sea are available from the MODIS Rapid Response Team Website. Note that the slick will not be visible in every image; viewing conditions have to be perfect for a thin sheen of oil or droplets to be visible in photo-like satellite imagery. (See a previous image in this event for an explanation.)

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes data archives (LAADS). Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

Related Links:

• How Much Oil Pollution Is Too Much?
• Major Ecological Disaster Underway in Timor Sea
• Australian Oil Disaster May Get a Lot Worse
• FEWW Earthquake Forecast: Timor Sea

• Magnitude 6.8 EQ Strikes BANDA SEA
• Deadly Earthquake Strikes Java, Indonesia

• Exxon Pays Peanuts to the Monkeys

• 4m liters of crude spill into French nature reserve
• Old MacDonald Had a Fleet
• Shell Leaks in Shabby Style!
• Exxon Mobile Court Orders Only Fraction of Damages
• Another Day, Another Oil Spill in Alaska

• Chevron should pay $27 billion in compensation
• US Govt Sues BP America
• Australia hit by another man-made disaster
• Large spill at Canada’s oil sands terminal

And dust to dust …

Images of ‘Doomsday?’

Another man-made disaster strikes Australia

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: 100 kph winds whipped up heavy dust storms followed by severe  thunderstorms in Sydney and much of New South Wales last night, media reported.

Road traffic slowed down to a crawl, ferries canceled, flights diverted or canceled as dust storm shrouded Sydney, and suffocating haze forced the residents to stay indoors.

Reuters: “This is unprecedented. We are seeing earth, wind and fire together,” said Dick Whitaker from The Weather Channel.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth, and the NSW state government recently cut the state’s 2009/10 wheat crop estimate by 20 percent because of hot, dry weather across the grain belt.

The country is one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change, but also the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter per capita as it relies on coal-fired power stations for the bulk of its electricity.

Red dust and gale force winds have severely disrupted flights into and out of Sydney (ABC online User submitted: Amber Hooper). Image may be subject to copyright.

Karen from Sydney’s inner western suburb of Dulwich Hill said she woke up to find the red dust had covered her floors and birds had been blown out of their nests.

“It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red, red glow coming through,” Karen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

“In the south, where there are showers, people will find it is falling as mud this morning, but that will help clear the dust from the air,” said the BOM spokeswoman.

(Top) A shot of Neutral Bay on a normal day, and (bottom) this morning. Photo: Lauren Jarrott, smh.com.au reader photo. Image may be subject to copyright.

Associated Press: Sydney’s fiery dawn was caused by the sun hitting a blanket of dust that was whipped up by wild weather in parched areas of the New South Wales outback.

People exercising at Coogee Beach. The Age.com.au reader Photo: Peter Rae. Image may be subject to copyright.

A person takes pictures of the dust on his car during a dust storm in Sydney. Photo: AP Photo/Rob Griffith. Image may be subject to copyright.

An enhanced colour satellite image shows the dust storm covering over eastern Australia in this handout picture dated September 23, 2009. REUTERS/Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology/Handout

Photo Gallery: The Age – Australia

Related Links:

• Australia hit by another man-made disaster
• The Australian Clean Energy Ruse
• Australia declares ‘natural’ disaster [again]
• Stick the Policies, Stop the Climate Change!
• The day God [sic] washed his hands off St. Andrew’s church

• Image of the Day: Human Excesses
• Australian fires toll may exceed 200
• A Living Hell Heated by Australian Coal
• Torrential Rains Flood Northern Australia

• You want to lose weight without exercise?
• Australian Coal and the Planet
• Vast swarms of locusts sweep across Australia
• Murray-Darling River Communities Are Struggling
• Hell Hath No Fury Like the Australian… Bushfire!

• The Mesopotamian Dust Bowl
• Iraq Faces Environmental Catastrophe
• Riyadh City May Collapse by 2010
• Iraq Ecocide Nears Totality
• Image of the Day: Sandstorm in Saudi Desert

• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Future Scenarios
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• World Problems: The Root Cause Matrix
• Giga Trends
• World CO2 Emissions

• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t
• Protect Economy from Climate??!
• Blind scientists examining the economic elephant
• How Much Carbon Dioxide Does Your Money Make?
• Cosmic Scale Evil
• Index of Human Impact on Nature

• New York Cognitive Dissonance

• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution
• Stop Burning Earth
• Energy: 286W

• Failing Ecosystems

SoCal End-to-End Corporate Arsons Blaze On!

3, 2, 1, Action: SoCal fires are using the same ‘template’ as the US unending wars

SoCal: New Bull Crap Fires Rage on!

A new blaze in the hills of Ventura County NW of Los Angeles has spread to nearly 7,000 acres moving towards the city of Moorpark.

An early snap of Guiberson Fire. About 150 fire crew were reportedly tackling  the blaze, which broke out in Ventura County between the towns of Fillmore and Moorpark, Tuesday morning. Photo: KABC. Image may be subject to copyright.

The fire, named Guiberson Fire, has “torched oil fields and threatened homes,” according to a report, though it’s not known how many structures are threatened.

The Guiberson fire threatens homes, ranches and farmland, among other structures, Bill Nash of the Ventura County Fire Department said. The Ventura County sheriff has reportedly called for voluntary evacuations  in rural sections of Moorpark which includes a number of  ranches, he said.

According to Nash several pipelines run below the brush-covered fields, though he’s unsure as to how many.

“Air tankers including a DC-10 jumbo jet and big helitankers bombarded the flames with retardant and water while hundreds of firefighters worked on the ground.” Another report said.

Another fire broke out in Riverside County, 40 miles east of Los Angeles, and burned from the city of Riverside into the city of Norco and toward adjacent Corona. Norco Fire Chief Jack Frye said the 120- to 150-acre fire was up to 60 percent contained and no homes had been lost despite gusts up to 45 mph.

Pile it on fire

LA Times quoted the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department as saying that the fire had started through “manure spontaneous combustion from a local ranch.”

Officials did not disclose exactly where the fire started or how. But spontaneous manure fires are fairly common in farm communities, often occurring during conditions of extreme heat. Temperatures around where today’s fire started near Fillmore topped 100 degrees, with wind gusts topping 50 mph.

Related Links:

• Calif Fires 2009 – Part 2 ‘We’re Watching You!’ [includes entries up to September 22, 2009]
• California Fires 09 – Part 3 ‘Pile on the Manure, Sheriff!’  [for entries dated after September 22, 2009]